“Earth’s utmost end, where’er it be,
May her hosts reach; careering proud
O’er lands where watery rain and cloud,
Or where wild suns hold revelry.
“But, to the soldier-sons of Rome,
Tied by this law, such fates are willed;
That they seek never to rebuild,
Too fond, too bold, their grandsires’ home.
“With darkest omens, deadliest strife,
Shall Troy, raised up again, repeat
Her history; I the victor-fleet
Shall lead, Jove’s sister and his wife.
“Thrice let Apollo rear the wall
Of brass; and thrice my Greeks shall hew
The fabric down; thrice matrons rue
In chains their sons’, their husbands’ fall.”
Ill my light lyre such notes beseem.
Stay, Muse; nor, wayward still, rehearse
God-utterances in puny verse
That may but mar a mighty theme.
TO A FAUN.
Od. iii. 18.
Wooer of young Nymphs who fly thee,
Lightly o’er my sunlit lawn
Trip, and go, nor injured by thee
Be my weanling herds, O Faun:
If the kid his doomed head bows, and
Brims with wine the loving cup,
When the year is full; and thousand
Scents from altars hoar go up.
Each flock in the rich grass gambols
When the month comes which is thine;
And the happy village rambles
Fieldward with the idle kine:
Lambs play on, the wolf their neighbour:
Wild woods deck thee with their spoil;
And with glee the sons of labour
Stamp thrice on their foe, the soil.